Chicago-based Calumet Photographic closes U.S. stores

Calumet Photographic announced today on Facebook that the company is closing all of its U.S. stores and has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, effective immediately. According to the statement, posted below, European branches will continue to operate. Calumet’s website and Twitter account are no longer available.

Posted on Calumet’s Facebook page:

'After 75 years of business it is with a heavy heart that we announce our immediate closing in the United States (our European stores will continue). It has been a joy to share our passion for photography with you all of these years. We'll miss each other and we'll miss all of our customers. Thank you for everything.'

Headquartered in Chicago, USA Calumet began life in 1939 as Calumet Manufacturing Company, a sporting goods store that also sold cameras from time to time and, over the decades, grew into a full service photographic retail and photofinishing chain. In 2012, after Metro DC-based Penn Camera filed for bankruptcy and closed 5 of its 8 stores, Calumet acquired the remaining three.

According to Chicago Tribune the Chapter 7 filing lists between $50-$100 million in assets and $10-$50 million in liabilities.

With the website and Twitter accounts down and customer reports of unanswered phones, it’s currently unknown what will happen to orders and rental gear.

Comments

I went into the Rockville, MD store with the intention of buying another 7D and was reminded of why I stopped going there. The signs on the door say xx% off the lowest marked price, but the angry woman who was "hired to run the liquidation" was busy telling a customer how dumb he was because he didn't understand that the sign really meant the price marked wad xx% off the original price and that was now the lowest price? I spent about half am hour in there while the employees were ordering lunch and several commercial customers were helped. I refuse to beg anyone to take my money, so i left and ordered online. Good riddance to the camera snobs and big egos that destroyed what wad once a great store.

The former Calumet Photo store located in Tysons Corner, VA or otherwise known as Vienna, VA is open for liquidation sales. My gear that was sold to them for which I never received any payment, is not on display which means it was likely sold. Since I was never paid for the gear, the gear is effectively stolen goods and the current or former organization effectively has sold stolen goods. I demanded return of like gear, but was just laughed at and told I could buy the gear from them! So, I'm standing in line as an unsecured creditor that is owed money - money I'll likely never see. The good news is that they are open in some locations and if you had gear in for cleaning or repair, you might be able to get it back. Please check to see if your store is open.

Anybody can help? I gave my canon to calumet for repair more than 2 months ago, and after many phone calls with no answers ,drove to the store to see a post on the window stating about the chapter 7 ,anybody can help with a contact info or a phone # for me to get my camera back ?

Sad to hear this news. They employees at the Oak Brook IL store was awesome. Very helpful, friendly and always went out of the way to help. Their paper backdrops were great and their Monolights were great as well. Wish I bought another one.

Saw a post in here about arrogance at smaller stores. Found the same thing as well. I have a local store in Glen Ellyn IL that will remain nameless (Starts with a P, ends with a "J's" and no letters in between) that had the worst customer service I have ever seen in a photo shop or other business for that matter. They would rip Canon users for not buying Nikon and always talked down to people. Every employee was an a** basically. I would listen to them talk to customers and just laughed. Talking down to people was their expertise. Their prices were ridiculous as well.

I just found out about the bankruptcy and store closures. I use Calumet's Travelite series monolights and have for 15 years now. I like the lights, better than other monolights I've tried, and dealt with the stores or service only occasionally. I can understand that the business wasn't run effectively, but most of the time I had good dealings with store people. Now I'm concerned about servicing, parts and so on, but I called Silvino's in LA and found that they will continue to repair the Travelite series and can get parts, thanks to the manufacturer Bowens of UK still being in business, and a company (Mack Group or something like that) has bought the parts distribution in the US, I believe. Bowens has manufactured the Travelite series and other lights for Calumet all along. So for those who own Travelite series lights, this should be pretty good news. I will definitely go to or ship to Silvino's for repair and such.

Many of the employees of small stores are arrogant, like at Samy's camera in Los Angeles. It is so difficult to buy stuff there. I have to wait for awhile before got help. On the other hand, BH in New York has excellent service when I went to the store. Anyway, I prefer buying online. I can research myself, and no sales tax. The business model has changed.... I do not like buying from small stores, for they only have limited stocks so that I end up buying cameras that have been touched by people who want to try the camera. To return a camera is also a pain.

Unfortunately, a store credit means they owe you money so you are at the bottom of the list of creditors they owe a lot more to. You might ask if you can get something from the store if and when they let someone in to sort it all out. I'm asking if I can get my lenses back. Are you in touch with their attorney?

i have emailed the attorney and also left a message today with a clerk. I mentioned in my e-mail that I would be fine with any equipment that was comparable to the several thousand dollars that is owed to me! thanks, Jan

Bought all my studio gear and lab processing equipment from them in the early 60's. They got started by picking up a lot of nice equipment designs from Kodak as that company was moving away from gear, including the classic 4x5 studio view camera still is a great camera, with its inevitable 150mm f5.6 Symmar. My goodness, how time flies!

I sold a couple of lenses to my local Calumet store and never received payment for them only to learn of their abrupt closure. I contacted the attorney posted on the door. Of course, the money owed to me puts me at the back of the line of creditors so I'll never see my money. If they still have the lenses in the store, the attorney said I'll be able to get them back once they figure out how. There are people with cameras that were brought in for service that the owners want to get back as well. I'm not holding my breath that I'll get the gear back. I wonder if I contact my homeowners insurance if I could put in a theft claim? I could get the actual replacement value vs. the crappy amount Calumet was supposed to have paid me!

This is the bottom line;If the manufacturers/suppliers such as Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji etc, will stop dropping their pants for the big boys and treat the little "brick & mortar" the same this will not be happening, of course they will deny that they do such things. I have worked in the photographic retail business and has seen invoices that were by mistake send to us and it clearly showed lower prices and or special terms and perks. This same scenario happened with circuit city, they kept shipping to them with special prices and perks, and owed the suppliers millions, how stupid are they, meanwhile the small guy could not be late with a few dollars, otherwise they would get 100's of calls to collect such. Now we all pay for this. Also, it is the fault of local photographers that want to go to the local store and feel & stroke the equipment and then mail order it!!!SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BUSINESS and they will be around to help you, stop making excuses.

I have seen customers in a store take up a sales person's time asking questions and comparing camera and then pull out his phone and call B&H and order right in front of the sales person. Saying he's saving the Tax and it's a little cheaper! I was blown away!

I also know of a dealer that had two stores, one in NYC and one in another state. He order a super popular camera for his out of state store and two days later ordered the same camera for his NYC store. The NYC store got delivery immediately while the out of state store was backorder, yet that order went in FIRST! He told me, he knew then that out of state store can't compete in this marketplace. Shortly after that he closed the out of state store.

So I concur with everything you mentioned! They helped kill the little guy. But the government also for not address the no-tax on mail order purchases gave a huge advantage to NYC big box dealers and Amazon. These state governments cry that they're broke but this miss this?

I totally agree with the sales tax issue, sales tax should be mandatory on all sales in or out of state or accordingly to the the state that is ship to. We will not see this happening since all the politicians have been bought and paid for by lobbyist groups, well..maybe we can one day buy one of these politicians by mail order for what they are really worth.

Calumet didn't adapt to the times. It's that simple. Kind of sad as they were my first stop for a=everything I needed when I lived in Chicago. Even back in 2003 they were starting to get that stubborn, aged feeling. By the time I left chicago I was just buying bulk film from them.

They did have plenty of competition from Central Camera and Helix. Helix closed down last year. Central is pretty much all that's left.

I paid Calumet Cambridge MA $1,145 for an Epson Stylus. Please, does anybody know what recourse do I have? What possible actions can I take? Waiting until the case is closed - which takes a very long time - and distribution of assets I will be lucky to get $100!Please, Please, HelpThanks a millionsoacst@gmail.com

Personally, I have bought most of my gear from Best Buy. Bought my 600D, 15-85mm from a store, 70-300 online from BB. The reason I did this was because they have most common items in stock locally.

Got my Speedlight 430 and 40mm lens from B&H in the store (NY).

I purchased a cleaning kit from Amazon and it was a clone, very poor quality branded as Canon. Got two hoods from Amazon, one was good the other doesn't fit and broke. Wary of getting repackaged items on Amazon.

Rented studio lighting and 5D's from Calumet, good equipment, cost $2k though but needed the gear. Now, not sure where to rent gear from.

There are a number of variables that played a part in the demise of Calumet & other photo stores. Clearly Amazon, B&H & online played a role in this, but I think the camera manufacturers may have played a bigger role in this as they supplied the bigger online retailers first and better and did little to protect the pricing structure, as long as they were getting orders from the big box e-tailers. So the smaller brick and mortar stores were getting the 'hot' cameras AFTER the big run on them happened and at very little margin. Add that photo finishing dried up soo badly, folks weren't going to these local camera stores anymore for their images.

The other issue I heard from the these smaller retailers was that customers would come in to touch and feel the cameras and figure out what they wanted and THEN go online to purchase it. They got tired of being the local showroom for B&H, etc. Thus lower their stock. Add to that the life cycle of cameras has shortened so dramatically

Over a year after taking over Penn they hadn't even managed to change the sign out front of the DC store... Made it kind of confusing, not to mention the tints or whatever it was made the store look like it was closed from the outside. While traveling thru the area I visited a smaller but much better stocked store right outside DC, not entirely shocked Calumet wasn't doing so hot... Tho it does seem odd they couldn't hold unto lucrative markets like Chicago and DC with very little in-city competition.

Always bad that people lose jobs. But survival depends on creativity. You can call it marketing, but it's just thinking ahead of the marketplace, and there is no evidence that anyone at Calumet or Penn Camera ever did that. The vibe I got from everyone there was a sort of sad-sack fatalism, and I doubt anyone working in an environment like that for more than a couple of years would ever go on to produce something meaningful or ground-breaking. If I'm wrong, send me a link to some ex-employee's stellar vision or work. Good luck finding it.

Good Point but for many in the photo industry, it's all they know. So the transition to another industry can be very challenging. Not to mention, that employers (in this economy) take fewer risks and hire within their own industry. It will be tough for many of those ex-employees. Truly a sad time.

I worked more than 30 years in the industry and toward the end it was so small I thought I knew everyone personally. I tried to stay in and got an offer to product manage Canon inkjet. They they wanted to take on Epson but weren't committed to doing what it would have taken.

As for it being "all they know" an awful lot of specialized photo knowledge is unfortunately worthless these days. Somebody buys a D800 and a stack of business cards that say professional and they're ready to go. You don't exactly need knowledge of sensitometry.

Reading your post, I found myself nodding my head in agreement and recalling what I hear all too often "these images are GOOD ENOUGH" when they show me photos on their phones that they share daily on Facebook or some social media site.

I hate to say that I actually do know someone that got a D800 and went around her child's school and handed out business cards. No clue about lighting, background distractions, she just thought it would be a good part time job.

So what killed the industry. the smart phone or the big box online E-tailers or the manufacturers pandering to the big box stores?

I never understood why local brick-and-mortar camera stores don't deliver products to your door. I can order a $10 pizza and have it delivered from the local pizza shop, but I can't have a $1000 camera delivered from my local camera shop. But I can order a lens cap from B&H and have it shipped all the way across the country to my door. Instead, brick-and-mortar stores force you to conform to the way *they* want you to do business: get in your car, drive to the store, wait to talk to a store clerk (ugh!), etc. If I know what I want, I'd much rather place the order online and have it delivered...even if it were from a local camera store. But unfortunately, local camera stores don't think it's worth their time to deliver.

If you can't compete on price, you have to at least try to compete on service. Which a lot of brick-and-mortar camera stores don't bother doing.

I'm surprised the Calumet Chicago location didn't thrive after the closing in 2013 of the other big pro photo retailer in Chicago, Helix. Seems like they were spoon fed the Chicago market after Helix closed.

It's kinda funny - a lot of you on here think that B&H is the only place to buy stuff (online), and they are not, so try to hold down the free advertising, please.Also, Amazon IS having an effect on ALL retailers - that's why you see many places having contractual agreements between all retailers - the price you pay for something at B&H, Adorama, Wal-Mart, Best Buy is the same as the price at Amazon.Calumet was always the highest price place around, but they also catered to a special market - large format - 4x5 or higher, Horseman, etc.Soon almost all 'camera only' retailers will be gone, they cannot sustain profitability, but camera stores are not alone, I don't see many hi-fi stereo stores today, either.

Way to go fredphotog I wonder how these same online cheer leaders will feel when they have to start paying taxes on every purchase and a 20% restocking fee for returns. If you don't think this is not going to happen you are kidding yourself.

Online does not exclude having a physical store. Many online stores have physical stores. Sometimes I buy camera gear online, other times in store; sometimes the prices in physical stores are as good, minus shipping, waiting, having to return it via post if something is wrong etc etc. Retail is inherently brutal and, I'm afraid, rarely ethical.

Before online shopping, calumet's mail order prices were always higher than B&H. In the course of 20 years I may have visited their online stores a few times but never bought anything. Most of my purchases were from B&H.

I could not understand how they stayed in business. Going out of business, that I can understand.

Same with the Philly location, not really visible front the street. Enterence was behind a movie theater and you had to ride an elevated to the second floor to finally enter the store, felt very shady... but the store was well stocked with helpful staff.

I spoke to one of the people at a UK branch today. They are unaffected by this. I don't know how this works if your parent company in the US goes under yet the UK arm is unaffected, surely it would be considered an asset. I guess some legal bod in business law would know how this works.

I am glad though, as the UK stores are very good, and I always go there for studio equipment as there is not many other places around.

I've been a customer of Central for 40 years or so. Wonderful, knowledgeable people, absolutely forthcoming always. Don Flesch is is the inheritor of a great family business. But two of my great friends there have retired. Nevertheless, I hope the store can go on. It was. for me, a club, a sanctuary, a hangout full of cameras and talk.

Well, I don't miss them, and it's very poor mgmt. that brought them to bankruptcy! No Vision! They should have built a website that was very much like B & H Photo. Run with a business model that is working. Had the CEO done his home work he could have put together a business plan that could have been sold for a strong credit line. Close all the other stores and have One huge showcase/Distribution store in Chicago. with good hard working employees with an incentive plan. I think they they could have had a chance. There loss not our's!

Maybe the writer was talking about net assets. I was a bit baffled by the initial articles that talked about assets being $50m higher than outstanding liabilities. The reports that they were way behind with suppliers is more consistent witht he bankruptcy filing.

@ Havani. I read elsewhere that they had $50k in assets, not $50 million. There is good coverage over at PetaPixel, including an interview with an employee and a link to a website with reviews of the company by workers (http://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Calumet-Photographic-EI_IE262122.11,31.htm).

Sounds like they were struggling to get any stock, which meant low sales that led to more merchants refusing to send them stock on credit. Another big signal was a recent set of missed paychecks to employees.

Many employees seem to be blaming the current President, who came from Ritz after running it into the ground.

Unfortunately this is a common occurance in business. Big shot executives are hired for their experience running companies on the verge of bankruptcy...even if their track record tells they fail to keep those companies afloat. Some companies cannot be saved though.

This is a sad development as I've bought from them for years. Being located in the Milwaukee area I could get anything next day via regular UPS ground shipping and on most items their pricing was competitive. Their sales people were knowledgeable and always happy to chat about gear with no pressure which was refreshing compared to B&H and Adorama. That said they should have found a way even if it meant dumping the stores and keeping the online business. Crutchfield does this better than anyone and they're big in selling audio which is a more subjective buying experience (read subject to more customer handholding and even higher return rates). Camera equipment is more objective and easier to buy online and that was the downfall for Calumet's stores but they should have saw this coming and changed strategy and direction. Another one bites the dust but this is disturbing to someone who worked in retail selling audio during college back in the 70's.

I don't quite understand the accounting numbers. If they have $50-$100 million in assets, that range far exceeds the $10-$50 million in liabilities. At worst, it's a 1:1 ratio of assets to liabilities ($50-million:$50 million). At best, it's 10:1 assets to liabilities ($100-million:$10 million). Those are not bankruptcy numbers.That said, I am a Chicagoan who shopped there. There were frequent out-of-stock situations. Reading elsewhere online, it seems they were delinquent in paying suppliers, who then stopped shipping.This is kind of frightening as it portends once more the decline of brick-and-mortar retailing in which you can actually physically inspect the merchandise you're considering buying.

Having worked for Penn Camera in the past, a DC based company that was later bought out by Calumet when they went bankrupt, I can't say that I am all that surprised. They haven't had any real stock for some time now. Really. there is no room in the middle for a camera store, either you are big discount retailer with a huge online presence or a luxury retailer, i.e. Leica. Its very shameful however, that none of the employees were warned and more then likely they will never see some of their hard earned wages, since they too are considered creditors. In the end, all we are, is just a number. Good luck to everyone in finding new jobs!